Newsroom

The New York Times reports, “The pension plans at General Motors and Chrysler are underfunded by a total of $17 billion and could fail if the automakers do not return to profitability…”

Without a hint of irony, the New York Times recently reported that America’s schools do not teach financial literacy because they cannot find the money.

On March 15, 2010, Retail Info Systems News reported that over the coming months, Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM) might be closing as many as 175 stores, while Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) plans to close 100 stores and Men’s Wearhouse (NYSE: MW) will shutter 145 locations.

A coworker shared this story from the Chicago Sun-Times, and it is just the sort of story investors need to hear now and then. The gist is that an employee of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) bought three shares of stock for $60 each in the 1930s, left them alone, and ended up with $7 million, which she left to her alma mater, Lake Forest College.

Born in Istanbul in 1923, Ahmet Ertegun and his older brother Nesuhi were raised in Turkish embassies in Switzerland, France, and England, where their father served as the Turkish ambassador.

According to Ertegun, “When I was about 8 or 9 years old, in 1932, Nesuhi took me to hear Cab Calloway and later Duke Ellington at the Palladium in London.” Thus began a lifelong love of blues-based music that fueled the most beloved independent record company ever.

At present, it is hard to tell whether Toyota will become the new poster child for cockroach theory – the cautious investor’s belief that when one serious problem surfaces, others are sure to follow – or replace Johnson & Johnson – which in 1982 recalled the entire nation’s supply of Tylenol after a handful of bottles were tampered with – as the poster child for corporate responsibility. Or both.

Sometimes, we have to smile at the challenge facing daily bloggers and the press, who have to come up with numerous headlines each day and, like kids, sometimes say the darnedest things.

CNBC.Com ran this gem on February 10, 2010: “In an Uncertain Market, Quality is King.”

We doubt that in 2005 the site proclaimed, “In a Perfectly Stable, Ever-Rising Market, Quality Doesn’t Matter,” but we wouldn’t put it past them. And we certainly understand the point CNBC.Com was trying to make.

As fragile world economies slowly recover from recession, experts look to two sources to determine whether deflation or rampant inflation might be the next great challenge: the Federal Reserve Bank and Wal-Mart.

As southern California recently endured a series of winter storms attributed to the El Nino effect, an acquaintance commented that his granddaughter, visiting from Portland, Oregon, could offer some tips about how to deal with so much rain. “Sorry, grandpa,” she told him, “but Portland was built for rain, so I never even think about it.”

As we previously reported in 2003, the largest graduating class in American history left high school in the summer of 2009. The expected effect on college communities – overcrowding and a real estate value boom – was mitigated by the overall financial meltdown – but all those graduates are still out there, looking for work, a place to live, and additional education.